The WCS standard defines a standard interface and operations that enable interoperable access to single or multi-dimensional geospatial coverages. Services implementing this standard provide an interface with a standard set of operations for accessing original or derived sets of geospatial coverage information. An important aspect of the WCS standard is that it allows access and retrieval of raw, unprocessed imagery, which is often required by rendering and processing services. Further information about WCS can be found at the WCS Service page (
http://www.ogcnetwork.net/wcs) of the OGC Network.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 390 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC® Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at
http://www.opengeospatial.org.